Trinity Fellowship, New Life Church merging

By DOUG McDONOUGH dmcdonough@hearstnp.com

Published 5:05 am, Saturday, February 14, 2015

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Church MergerDoug McDonough/Plainview HeraldSteve Martinez (left), pastor of New Life Church, and Steve Rogers, pastor of Trinity Fellowship, have brought their congregations together to form Trinity Life Church. The unified congregation will meet in a special celebration service at 10:45 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 15, at Harral Auditorium, with a dinner to follow at the Ollie Liner Center. less

Church MergerDoug McDonough/Plainview HeraldSteve Martinez (left), pastor of New Life Church, and Steve Rogers, pastor of Trinity Fellowship, have brought their congregations together to form Trinity Life ... more

Trinity Fellowship, New Life Church merging

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Although they began working in earnest last June to bring their two congregations together, both Steve Martinez and Steve Rogers say they felt God's own hand pushing them in the same direction several months earlier.

"It's been a process," Rogers says, "but the Lord began to speak to my heart about this, and it almost took my breath away. I have to admit I was kind of scared at first, but I had to obey the Lord."

Three weeks after he realized the direction God was pushing him, Rogers decided to broach the subject with Martinez over lunch.

"The moment he began to tell me," Martinez says, "I already knew what he was going to say. That very instant I began to get very excited because just a month earlier we had a guest speaker whose message was to get ready for church mergers. It went over my head then, but I realized that God was just getting my heart ready."

Rogers, pastor of Trinity Fellowship at Southwest Third and I-27, and Martinez, pastor of New Life Church, 513 W. 12th, are unifying their congregations to form Trinity Life Church. A special celebration service begins at 10:45 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 15, at Harral Auditorium at Wayland. A dinner will follow at Ollie Liner Center where more than 600 are expected.

Subsequently, the unified congregation will hold three services each Sunday - to serve both English and Spanish speakers - on the Trinity campus. They will continue to use the New Life building, which will become the downtown campus, as well as the Oneighty facilities on South I-26 for Life Group meetings and other activities.

"Steve and I have been great friends since we first moved here in 1994," says Rogers. They renewed that friendship in January 2014, and six months later starting talking about merging the two churches.

"It's really a very good thing," Martinez says, with Rogers adding "It's a God thing." Both see it as a way of bring people back into church services and becoming more involved.

Their ultimate goal is to have a vibrant growing congregation that "looks like Plainview," with the same ethnic mix as the community. Before merging, Trinity's demographics were about 60 percent Anglo and 40 percent Hispanic , with a small number of blacks. New Life was 95 to 96 percent Hispanic, along with some biracial couples.

"We want to reach out to people who are not being reached, and bring in more blacks, Asians, Indians and other ethnic groups," Rogers says. "Our motto is 'Breaking All Barriers,' and we want to go beyond our walls to reach out." In particular, the new congregation is striving to reach out to Millennials who have been turning away from organized religion. "We want to reach out to all ages, particularly to the 20 and 30-year-olds," Martinez adds.

"God has been speaking to us about the same things," the two admit. "We're both interested in making disciples of individuals by working with small groups."

To facilitate the merger, the two staffs and elderships were brought together and have been meeting jointly since December. The two congregations held joint fellowships on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, and Martinez and Rogers filled each other's pulpits last Sunday as each congregation held its final independent service.

"Our staffs and elders are very excited about this move," Rogers adds. "What really impressed me is that when we suggested the merger, they asked why we needed to wait. They wanted to just do it."

While there has been no second guessing, there have been a number of details to work out. "But everyone has had a good attitude, which has helped the process along," Rogers said.

Steve and Karen Martinez have been married 28 years and have three children: Steven who is worship pastor at the church, Joseph who is a ministerial student in Sydney, Australia, and daughter Jaimie Ramirez who lives in Plainview. They also have two grandchildren. His father, who has pastored the same church in Seagraves for 50 years, plans to be in Plainview on Sunday to attending the first service of Trinity Life Church.

Steve and Debi Rogers will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary next month. She teaches at Estacado Middle School. Their daughter Rachael is an assistant worship leader, and a beautician at Steel Magnolias Beauty Shop. Their son Rustin Rogers, 26, lives in Arlington and will be getting married in two weeks, with his father performing the ceremony. Another son, Reid Rogers, was 19 when he died in a traffic mishap a decade ago.

The merger unites two congregations with lengthy histories. Originally known as Templo Magdiel, New Life originated in the Frisco Addition before moving 13th and Galveston. After that structure was damaged in 1997 by a fire, the Assembly of God congregation "temporarily" moved to 12th and El Paso "for just a week" to the building vacated by First Assembly of God when it moved into its new building on I-27. Martinez has been pastor since 1988.

Trinity Fellowship was called Calvary Temple when it opened in 1973 with Gary Page serving as pastor. Rogers became pastor in 1994 and the name was changed to Calvary Church. It later became Trinity Fellowship Church and is a sister to Trinity Church in Amarillo. It is part of the Trinity Fellowship of Churches, organization of 40 congregations.

While both Rogers and Martinez are senior pastors, Rogers is lead pastor.

"When you do something like this, you have to do it with a purpose," Rogers explains. "First, God has spoken to us to do this thing. Second, you have two pastors coming together with different personalities and different sets of spiritual gifts that can reach out to different individuals. By putting to two together, it must be for the benefit of God. It's about teamwork, and always about the Kingdom of God. It's not about us. It's about building His Kingdom."